Found, But Never Lost
by Ageha Yume
Summary: Draco only marked what is his - since childhood and beyond. HPDM.


Two childhood friends sat beside one another in a Kindergarten room, both respectively chose a small red and green stool to sit on. After the teacher announced what today's activity entails, the two best friends grinned at each other and hastily picked up the crayons from the plastic box situated at the center of the table.

Draco grabbed two sheets of paper and handed one to Harry, to which Harry smiled in gratitude. Afterwards, they began drawing what their most favorite thing in the world is. Harry immediately picked up a black crayon to draw the body of the stick figure, then picked up a bright yellow crayon for the hair. While drawing, he sneakily glanced at Draco for reference, adding little details to his drawing.

After awhile, he glanced at his hard work and he puffed his chest out, beaming with pride. Harry then noticed that Draco wasn't done yet and he sneaked peaks at his best friend's drawing and - it wasn't what he expected.

Instead of seeing a small version of himself on the drawing, Draco drew a broom. Harry then frowned.

And in his mind, he arrived at a conclusion:

Quidditch is greater than Harry.

 _'Am I not his favorite person?'_ Harry's lips began to tremble, heart heavy with disappointment and sadness; he began to scoot slightly away from Draco, angling his body as well so he wouldn't have to face his best friend.

"Done!" Draco declared. He was a genius if he had to say so himself; just look at how realistic his Nimbus is! Draco turned to Harry, expecting to see Harry next to him, but never had he expected Harry to sit at the far end of the table... away from him.

"Harry?" Draco asked, trying to scoot closer to the blackhead, but Harry shake his head.

"I won't talk to you anymore!" Harry clenched his fists, "You're not my best friend!"

Draco's heart clenched, "Why? What did I do?" His answer came out as a whisper filled with hurt and Harry immediately felt guilty.

In his endeavor to cover up his guilt, Harry glared at the blonde and pointed at his drawing. "Look! I drew you because you're my favorite person. But you - you..." Harry panted, eyes soon became watery.

When Draco saw that, he instantly stand up and hugged his best friend, ignoring Harry's efforts to push him away. "No, you're wrong! She said that we had to draw our favorite _thing_ , not person! And Harry, you are my favorite person!" Draco then scrambled to his backpack and take out the stuffed plushie that Harry gave him for his birthday. "Look! I still have your gift!"

Harry sniffed, "...Not lying?"

Draco nodded hastily, "Un! Not lying!"

Harry rubbed his eyes, clearing the tears. And a smile soon graced his lips, "Okay, best friends!" Seeing his best friend cheered up, Draco did what he'd normally do in Kindergarten: sharing stories with Harry.

However, it was then that the teacher announced: "Children, when you're done, make sure to write your name on your drawings! This way, people will know that this is yours!"

Draco's eyes sparkled and came up with an excellent idea; he scanned the room and ran to the teacher's desk, standing on his tiptoes in order to grab the sharpie scattered on the desk. He then returned to Harry's side and uncapped the sharpie, writing his name on Harry's palm.

"Draco?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you write your name on my hand?"

Draco smiled, "Because this way everyone will know that you're mine! And!" He shoved the sharpie into Harry's hand, "Here, write your name on my hand!"

"Okay," Harry nodded and write slowly on Draco's hand.

Draco grabbed Harry's unmarked hand and a smile as big as the sun appeared, "Now, everyone knows that we're best, _best_ friends!"

* * *

Lily squinted her eyes... Was that what she think it was? "Harry dear?"

"Hmm?" Harry hmm-ed, mouth full with food.

"Is that Draco's name on your hand?"

"Say what?" James demanded, dropping his newspaper and paced to Harry's side, turning his hand. "Son, is there a reason for this?"

"Draco said that this way, everyone would know I'm his!"

James' mouth dropped while Lily muttered an "Oh my."

While Harry's parents were staring at each other, Harry continued to eat his sandwich with bliss.

* * *

During dinner that same day, Draco was eating with his family but every once in a while, he would glance down and a smile appeared out of nowhere.

Lucius' eyebrow twitched. "Draco," his sultry voice started. "Care to share what is so interesting below the table that you keep staring down?"

"Nothing, father," Draco shake his head, and picked up the fork.

"Well, have I not taught you to keep both hands on the table? Where did your manners disappear to, Draco?" At this moment, Narcissa glared at her husband and jabbed his side, silently reprimanding him to speak this way to their only child.

"Dragon, your father is just curious in his own way; come one, tell us what's on your mind." Narcissa's soothing voice made Draco agreed, and the child showed his parents what was written on his palm.

"'Harry'...?"

Draco nodded, "This way, everyone would know that I'm Harry's. We will be together forever."

"Son," Lucius stated sternly. "Erase it immediately; it's highly inappropriate."

"No!" Draco jumped to his feet and ran to the stairs. But before he retreated to his room, he reiterated what his mother would often tell him whenever he hanged out with Harry, to which Lucius would greatly disapprove: "Father is just jealous!"

Lucius spluttered with a "What?" while Narcissa silently chuckled.

* * *

Harry kicked the pebble on the ground absentmindedly with a frown marring his lips. Every now and then, he would glance up, looking around for his best friend who was nowhere in sight. Draco promised him to play, and yet, he wasn't here.

Besides, the sky was already painted with an orange hue, which means that the sun would soon set in a few hours. It wouldn't be long until Harry had to go back home; guess today they couldn't play.

Harry sat on the turtle statue in the playground, and decided to wait just a little bit longer. At this moment, several shadows creep closer to Harry and, thinking that it was Draco, Harry looked up.

"Dra-" Instead of Draco, it was Dudley and his gang. However, usually they would glance at Harry with a cruel laugh and an evil face, but today they were surprisingly smiling and being all friendly.

"Harry," Dudley began. "I wanted to apologize for what we had done before; it was very bad of us. Will you forgive us?"

"Yeah, Harry, we're sorry," Dudley's friends repeated, nudging each other to reiterate the same phase.

Suffice to say, Harry was beyond shock at this turn of events. But noticing how sincere they were, Harry accepted their apology.

"Do you want to play hide-and-seek with us? It would be fun, promise!" Harry looked around once more and since Draco was still absent, he nodded.

Leaning against the tree trunk, one of Dudley's friend began to count to 100 and everyone scattered. Harry himself picked a blue crawl tube and climbed inside, hugging his body close. However, he never noticed Dudley gesturing his friends, laughing silently while they all left the playground, leaving Harry alone being none the wiser.

Possibly thirty minutes had passed and Harry was getting suspicious. But instead of getting out, he remained in place because there might be a chance that the reason why he wasn't found was because his hiding place was that good.

And so he waited. And waited. And waited.

But no one came for him to which Harry only realized this after he had woken from his nap.

Looking to his side, Harry noticed that the sun had already set and that the sky was becoming darker with the moon taking the sun's place.

Harry glanced down dejectedly; he should have expected that Dudley would approach him with only ill-intentions and that he would never seek Harry out otherwise. And so he began to crawl out but his head bumped into something.

Since when was there a wall? Harry looked up and totally didn't expect to see grey eyes peering down at him. "Come on, Harry, let's go home." Harry grabbed Draco's hand.

"How do you know where I am, Draco?"

Draco grinned and pointed at Harry's palm, "Because of this. See, since my name is on your hand, I can find you no matter where you go."

Draco chose to keep silent about the fact that he had accidentally eavesdropped on Dudley and his gang's conversation on the way to the park, talking about their prank on Harry.

Harry looked down, "But..." Draco's name was already smudged and quite faded on his palm despite Harry retracing those words again and again even after a year later. "Can it still work even though it's like this?"

"Of course! Because I'm yours and you are mine! No matter what."

Harry glanced at their intertwined hands and felt incredibly warm on the inside. "Okay!"

* * *

 _10 years later_

Harry plopped onto the sofa in this small room that he had discovered during his adventure in Hogwarts; despite its size, Harry found this room very comforting and often times, he would escape to this room for some peace once things became too chaotic.

This room was his secret and he haven't told anyone, including his boyfriend Draco.

Getting comfortable, Harry take out his childhood album, full of pictures of Draco and him together; these bundle of memories had always worked like Calming Draught in which he always feel at ease whenever he reminisced the past.

Flipping through the pages, Harry couldn't help but think just how cute Draco was in the past, though that was not to say that the present Draco wasn't cute (despite his snotty, narcissistic self). If Harry had to choose a specific photograph, his favorite would be the one where they were both smiling and hugging at the same time with each other's names on their cheek on display. One, it annoyed their respective parents and two, marking each other had been a tradition of some sort between them.

However, now that they both had outgrown this tradition, sometimes Harry wondered if they can go back to their childish antics and mark each other once more. Nevertheless, he'd understand that they would only be laughed at for their stupidity if they did so in their Hogwarts days instead of being laughed at for their silliness back in Kindergarten.

Harry sighed; those were indeed good times.

He flipped to the next page and stifled his laughter. In this photograph, Draco and Harry were dressed as ninjas for Halloween, and the two pretended that they were on a secret mission, roaming the Malfoy mansion as stealthily as possible. And Draco - poor Draco's headband had slid down, covering his eyes and he accidentally slammed into the wall. Harry himself was no better; since Draco had stopped abruptly, Harry had bumped into Draco's back and they both nursed a bruised nose and forehead. How their parents had captured this moment was still a mystery even now as there was no one around them, but Harry didn't ponder further.

But all in all, this album was his treasure filled with irreplaceable memories.

Harry leaned back at the sofa and rested the album on his raised lap. And as he resumed browsing through the album, the portrait to this room suddenly opened and Harry glanced up.

It was his boyfriend.

As Draco settled next to Harry, Harry asked with curiousity, "How do you find me? Did you used the Marauder's Map?"

"Of course not!" Draco gasped in mock horror. Afterwards, he intertwined their hands, "Remember how I used to tell you that because my name's written on your palm, I will always find you?"

"Yeah. But we had long stopped marking each other."

Draco shake his head, "Although the physical manifestations of my love disappeared, how I feel for you never dwindled; it only duplicated."

Harry laughed and shoved Draco teasingly, "You totally copied that line from somewhere!"

"I think you had gone bonkers, Harry; this is _my_ original quote of the day," Draco huffed.

"Yes, yes, whatever you say, Your Majesty," Harry rested his head on the blonde's shoulder.

"As you should." Draco pecked Harry's forehead, then replaced the teasing mood with a serious one, "Harry, I had something to show you."

Draco reached into his pocket and take out a rather thick black sharpie.

"What, want to write your name on my body again?"

"Oh, I'll do something else with your body," Draco waggled his eyebrows. "But no." He stared at the sharpie, inhaling and exhaling a several times before he mustered his courage and proceed forward. He uncapped the sharpie and to Harry's surprise, the tip of the sharpie was missing. Draco dumped the content of the cap onto his hand and Harry gasped.

It was a ring. A simple but elegant emerald ring.

Draco slipped the engagement ring on Harry's fourth finger. "There, now the physical proof of my love is present," he declared - hand still grasping Harry's - as if he haven't been proving his love for Harry these past years.

Harry glanced at the ring; really, Draco spoil him. "Hey, not gonna wait for my reply to your 'proposal?'"

"You're not going to reject me, are you?" Draco looked crestfallen and Harry immediately jumped into his arms.

"Of course not." Harry's nose touched Draco's as he looked into his fiance's eyes, "I love you."

"I know," Draco whispered back.

"And how do you know?" Harry hugged Draco tighter, drawing their bodies closer.

"Because I'm yours and you are mine."


End file.
